Cardiovascular diseases are typically treated pharmacologically, using interventional cardiology, and surgically. For example, interventional, catheter-based treatments include percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (“PTCA”) with an angioplasty balloon to compress plaque to the wall of a coronary vessel, placement of a stent in a vessel to maintain the patency of the vessel, and atherectomy to use a cutting instrument to shave off and remove plaque from the lumen of the vessel. Surgical treatments include coronary artery bypass grafting procedures using cardiopulmonary support, beating heart techniques, minimally invasive approach, and robotically assisted instruments. In these procedures, the surgeon may use traditional, endoscopic, and/or laparoscopic instruments. In traditional coronary artery bypass grafting, the surgeon uses sutures to anastomose a synthetic or natural bypass vessel to, for example, the aorta at one end and a coronary artery at the other end, or from the internal mammary artery (“IMA”) to a coronary artery. To form an anastomosis between an internal mammary artery and a coronary artery, blood flow through the internal mammary artery must be temporarily stopped, typically by applying a removable clamp to the mammary artery. The mammary artery is then severed downstream from the clamp to create a free end. An incision is created in the target coronary artery downstream of the blockage. The free end of the mammary artery can then be connected to the incision in the coronary artery, typically by suturing, such that blood can flow from the mammary artery through the incision into the coronary artery. Typical traditional coronary artery bypass grafting procedures involve aortic clamping and a procedure time of approximately ten to twenty minutes per anastomosis.
Some of the other devices used in beating heart and/or minimally invasive surgical treatments are produced by companies that include Converge Medical, Inc. (formerly Advanced Bypass Technologies, Inc.), By-Pass, Cardica (formerly Vascular Innovations), Coalescent Surgical, Corvascular, Ethicon, HeartPort, Heart-Tech, Intellicardia, Onux Medical, Origin MedSystems, Inc. (Guidant), St. Jude Cardiovascular Group (including Vascular Science), Sulzer Carbomedics, Vasconnect, and Ventrica.